The National Democratic Congress (NDC), has disassociated itself from the recent comments by one of the party’s flagbearer aspirants, Alban Bagbin.
It has also said it is going through the party’s internal processes to deal with the concerns raised by some Ghanaians over Mr. Bagbin’s statements on his campaign trail.
The National Organizer of the NDC, Kofi Adams, said Alban Bagbin must take full responsibility for his utterances.Alban Bagbin has been heavily criticized for what many consider to be disparaging and insulting comments about some members of the NDC.
Alban Bagbin, who is the second deputy speaker in Parliament and also the Member of Parliament for Nadowli/Kaleo in an interaction with delegates in the Volta Region said the appointment of Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa as a Deputy Education Minister in-charge-of Tertiary as one of such appointments.
“We had very good material in our last government, but the placement was wrong. Look at my son-in-law Ablakwa; brilliant, handsome young man, but he had problems before he got his certificate at Legon. You recall they almost rusticated him.”
“After he’s done national service in Parliament and joined politics, he was made a deputy Minister for Education in Charge of Tertiary. [So for] the lecturers, what are you telling them? Some of these decisions affected us a lot,” Mr. Bagbin said.
He also told the delegates that Mahama’s appointment of Edward Omane Boamah and Dr. Henry Seidu Danaa as Minister for Communications and Minister for Chieftaincy respectively also contributed to the party’s defeat.
According to him, Omane Boamah was a stammerer and couldn’t communicate effectively, while chiefs didn’t want to work with Dr. Danaa who is visually impaired because culturally he was considered not to be ‘whole.’
His comment has caused another aspirant, Jacob Atule Adongo, a Deputy National Communications Officer hopeful to lead a campaign to get Bagbin to resign from Parliament or apologize to persons with disability.
The Stammers Association are also demanding an apology from Bagbin.
But speaking on Citi TV’s Breakfast Daily on Thursday, Kofi Adams said the NDC as a party believes in an all-inclusive government and does not discriminate against persons with disability.
“As a political party, the NDC, we disassociate ourselves from such comments and we don’t believe in comments that are discriminatory. So Mr. Bagbin would have to carry his cross and bear his responsibility about what he has said which these persons [persons with disability] believe must not be made by someone of his stature. It is not a party-sponsored position that is why the party has given the opportunity to such persons in society… That is possibly his belief and so he should be dealt with….and he is capable of responding to all these.”
Meanwhile, the General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah in a Citi News interview at the party’s headquarters in Accra, said the party is proceeding on the matter carefully since it is more complicated.
He however charged aggrieved persons to respect the party’s structures.
“I have spoken to the press sufficiently enough that we have given advise about the conduct of the campaign leading to any of our elections. If somebody goes against those guidelines, there are processes you need to invoke and go through them. The processes do not include offended parties also taking the law into their own hands and firing back. So the issues are more complex than the press wants us to believe,” Johnson Asiedu Nketiah said.
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By: Jonas Nyabor/citinewsroom.com/Ghana
The post NDC dissociates itself from Bagbin’s ‘disparaging’ comments appeared first on Citi Newsroom.
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